


Milk Run

by Grenegome



Category: Dresden Files - Jim Butcher
Genre: Dresden Files Kink Meme, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-02
Updated: 2011-08-02
Packaged: 2017-11-18 06:17:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,102
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/557826
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Grenegome/pseuds/Grenegome
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Harry's first mission as the Winter Knight isn't very eventful.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Milk Run

**Author's Note:**

> Originally written for the Dresden Files Kink Meme.

I woke up when Maeve trailed an ice cold finger down my nose.

“Yah!” I batted her hand away instinctively, and then glared up at the Winter Lady from my comfortable bundle of furs. She leaned over me, smiling. That might not bode well. “What?”

“My mother calls us, Knight. Can you not hear? I came to collect you on my way to the throne room, but here you lie, sleeping.”

I _could_ hear Mab, a whisper of winter wind in the back of my mind, which explained why my dreams had taken a sudden turn into an Arctic storm. “Shit.” I rolled out of bed and scrambled for my jeans, hopping into them under Maeve’s amused gaze. “If this is another pop quiz on court etiquette, I’m striking. Swear to god.”

Maeve laughed, the tinkle of ice in a glass. “Then I hope for the quiz. But I doubt that _I_ would be summoned to such.”

She had a point. I pulled my shirt on. “Right. Well, lead on my lady. Let’s go find out her majesty’s pleasure.”

 

Mab was unattended when we arrived, except for Grimalkin, curled by her feet. I eyed him warily, wondering if he’d gotten over the accidental paws-frozen-to-the-fountain incident yet.

“Daughter, Knight,” Mab greeted us. I bobbed my head, Maeve did a little knee bend thing which might have been a curtsy without a skirt. She wore punked up black denim jeans and a ratty gray t-shirt for a band I’d never heard of. “You are to join the council in Rome, and speak for Winter in the current consultations.”

I blinked. “Seriously? You’re lifting my curfew?”

Mab eyed me calmly. “As it stands, your impatience at being kept close poses a greater threat than your newly bedded power. You have controlled yourself this past week, and I see no signs of relapse.”

Apparently, death could do funny things to a wizard’s magic. I might have gone funnier than most, but the majority of wizards didn’t have their own magic tangled up in Winter’s _and_ laced with soulfire. Mab had taken one look at the snowstorm I’d accidentally started about thirty seconds after following her through the Way from Demonreach, and decreed I was to hang out in Arctis Tor until I could control myself. I hadn’t objected; the storm had knocked three sidhe lords and a moderately sized giant ass over teakettle, and I couldn’t rein in my power until Lea reached up and tweaked my ear.

A few days ago, I’d felt everything settle, and I’d been waiting for the right moment to ask Mab for my parole. It looked like I wouldn’t have to; “Acquit yourself well, and my daughter will grant you freedom of the city until dawn. You will return at daybreak,” she said. So. Mab was testing me on a milk run? Fair enough. I bobbed my head again. “Call on your godmother. Winter’s Knight does not leave Arctis Tor clad as an urchin.”

I had to bite my tongue, because it’s not like _my_ outfit was drastically different from Maeve’s, in fact there were less... holes and pins and studs in mine, but I was the one getting scolded like I couldn’t be trusted not to leave the house without a coat. A teensy slither of objection slipped past my self control. “I’m not wearing a hat, my Queen.”

Mab flicked a hand in irritation, shooing me off. “Run along, child,” the Queen of Air and Darkness dismissed me, and turned her attention to Maeve.

 

Lea was lounging beneath an evergreen in one of the courtyards, murmuring into the ear of a mortal man sleeping in her lap. I trailed to a halt and grit my teeth.

“A new conquest, godmother?”

“A musician,” she smiled up at me. “With rare talent.”

Rare indeed, and Lea wasn’t really contributing to the conservation effort. But she was what she was, and ever had been, so I got down to business, ignoring the man’s dark lashes against his pale cheek, the vulnerable curve of his parted lips. There was nothing I could do for him, there and then. If I returned from Rome and he was still following Lea around with starry eyes, maybe I could open a Way and accidentally knock him through it.

I looked away from the musician and back to my godmother, before she could get impatient with me. “Our lady queen wants you to make me look pretty,” I said. Lea slid the mortal man off her lap and into the snow, a discarded toy. She stood and beamed at me instead, presented with a more intriguing game. “Not _that_ pretty! It’s just for the meeting in Rome, whatever it is.”

“The Accords meeting, child. It’s been running for weeks, and you’ve paid it no mind?”

“I was busy learning not to do impressions of Mr. Freeze. Priorities.”

Lea waved a hand at me, and without warning my clothes twitched, changed. I yelped as my jeans suddenly got a lot snugger, and then looked down in horror. “I’m not going to wear _pantyhose_ , Godmother! Look, give me pants or no-one’s taking Winter seriously.”

Lea sighed and tossed her hair back behind her shoulders. “Child. Mortal men wore hose to hunt and court for centuries.”

“Well have you seen them doing it recently? _No_.” As Lea’s eyes narrowed, I beat a hasty retreat from any further sarcasm and ducked for conversational cover instead. I’d only worked it out recently, but Lea really liked it when I was well mannered. “Please, my lady? I don’t want to make a show of myself like this. Fidgeting.” To illustrate, I started trying to untwist one of the seams that was migrating across my inner thigh.

Lea tutted and waved her hand once more. My ridiculous get-up shifted seamlessly into a less ridiculous gray suit. It was still a lot keener on tracing the shape of my body than anything else I’d ever kept in my wardrobe; I felt strange wearing a suit that was long enough in the limbs and tight enough in the waist all at the same time. The shirt was blue, just about, but so pale it was almost white, and the cuffs were fastened with little silver snowflakes. My collar was unfastened, and Lea hadn’t noosed me with a tie. I didn’t have a mirror, but I thought maybe I might look kind of... good.

“Handsome,” Lea smiled, confirming my thoughts. “It speaks to your youth and power, but perhaps a little too much....” She looked mischievous for a moment. “The council will be distracted, I’m certain.”

“I rather like it, Leanansidhe,” Maeve’s voice called from behind me. I suppressed a flinch; I hadn’t heard her approach. “We will suit.”

I looked behind me to discover Maeve’s punked up jeans had changed into some kind of gray shredded cobweb of a dress, her hair was piled into a precarious tangle on top of her head, and her intent eyes peered through a domino mask of icy blue. Classy. Sort of.

“We look like some kind of indie band I’m not cool enough to listen to,” I objected, folding my arms. Maeve smiled and circled me, stepping close to reach up and pat my cheek. “Now, don’t sulk, Harry. Be sweet, and I’ll let you loose for the night.”

Apparently my Winter orientation program now included positive reinforcement, and I was itching for some unsupervised time in the mortal world. Time I wouldn’t have to demand or fight for; I could pony up a show of appropriate Knightlyness for that.

I smiled, caught Maeve’s hand, and then bowed over it before looping her arm through mine. “As you wish, my lady.”

She smiled back up at me, amused by the playacting. “Be a dear and get the door, Lea.”

My godmother murmured quietly, and the air before us parted. “Now, watch your step children,” she called as we stepped out into the world. “The Eternal City is no place to be careless.”

We stepped through, and into the first real sunlight I’d felt on my skin for what felt like an age.

 

We were standing in a fountain. A big fountain. With an imposing wall of statues at our back, and a no less imposing wall of tourists at our front. “Oh. Shit.”

“Quiet, Knight.” Maeve scolded. “We _are_ veiled.”

“Fine, so we won’t get arrested for standing in a public monument. Doesn’t change the fact my socks are swimming.” I sploshed around pointedly, and Maeve, who was standing smugly _above_ the water, scowled as I splashed her dress.

“If you really can’t spell yourself dry, I’ll do it for you. But you aren’t an infant, Dresden. Surely you can tend to yourself by now.”

I freed her arm, mostly so I could cross my own and scowl back. “Drying charms. I’ll put them on my to-learn list. Come on Maeve, where next? We aren’t meeting here.”

“This is the Fountain of the Three Ways. We just came through the first, and now we need the second.” Maeve waved her hand, and the air in front of us opened onto a marble tunnel, lit by flickering orbs of blue light. None of the happy families, couples, college kids or backpackers around us seemed to notice. “Come.”

We padded down a marble corridor, me squelching in my now less than comfortable dress shoes. After the mockery, I wasn’t asking Maeve to dry me out, but damned if I could do it myself without a minute to sit and draw a circle, which we didn’t have, judging by the pace at which we were moving. Maybe we were late.

“Why now?” I asked. “These meetings have been on for ever, right?” I still hadn’t got used to the freedom of plying Maeve and Mab with questions, and getting my answers for free. Or at least, the answers they thought it would be useful for me to know. Which was quite a lot of them, actually. A well informed Winter Knight was a good asset.

“Nearly a month. They are concluding, so Winter must be present.”

“Why?” I’d watched some of the Carpenter kids go through that phase. _Why? But why? So... why? Ok, why?_ That was me. The most junior member of Winter’s Court, figuring out his Knighthood.

“An amendment to a clause of the Accords is proposed, and this is the final gathering of certain relevant parties. All others have been heard from.”

Well. That sounded like this was going to be an adrenaline filled encounter. “Exciting. What am I doing, standing around and propping up walls?”

“Taking the minutes. My mother will want a full report.”

“Augh-- ” I cut myself off before I could manage a full blown wail of dismay. Even at the dreariest White Council gatherings I’d ever been subjected to, everyone had known better than to saddle _me_ with the paperwork. _Minutes_. You hear ‘knighthood’, you think it’s going to be all swordplay and questing. Not so much with the admin and bureaucracy. “Yay?”

“Oh hush. You have an acquaintance here, at least that should interest you. _I_ however will have to look fascinated by the wordsmithing of pedants.”

Acquaintance? I did? “You’re Sidhe, you practically patented pedantic wordsmithing,” I said, just as we rounded a corner into some kind of vestibule.

The Baron of Chicago was standing there, shrugging out of his coat.

“Uhm.” I said.

Acquaintance. Right.

I hadn’t managed to send word to anyone in Chicago about my continued state of not-deadness. They were going to _kill_ me if they found out from Marcone first.

The scumbag’s head jerked around at the sound of my hesitation, his eyes fastening onto mine and widening just for an instant, before his expression froze into a polite holding pattern. Not many people get to shock him. I make it a hobby.

But Gentleman John doesn’t stay shocked for long. He folded the coat over one arm, and dipped his head in a shallow bow. “Lady Winter, a pleasure.”

“Baron. You know Harry, of course?” Maeve said it idly, like we were all casually acquainted, bumping into one another at Mac’s.

“I _do_ know Harry, yes. You’re looking remarkably well, Wizard Dresden.” The _for a dead man_ was unspoken, but Marcone seemed slightly distracted by the fact I was neatly dressed, gaze caught about half way down my suit jacket. My godmother did good work.

“ _Knight_ Dresden,” Maeve corrected with a smile. “Winter has first claim on him, as agreed with his Council.”

Agreed? I glared a question at Maeve, then remembered I was aiming for a gold star for good behaviour and softened it into an eyebrow raise. She rolled her eyes at me, and I made a mental note on my ‘things to take up with Mab’ list.

“Marcone!” A warm voice broke into our discussion, with what could only be described as a bellow. A tall, broad, blond hunk of muscle wandered through the double doors behind Marcone. “Is Sigrun not staying today? A pity.” The new arrival looked familiar, something about the set of his jaw and the pale blue of his eyes niggling at the back of my brain. He-Man noticed us. “Having fun, Maeve? Your new Knight broken in yet?”

“Not quite house trained,” I said before she could answer, and pointed to the sopping hems of my trousers. Marcone took a long breath and glanced at the ceiling. Fashion faux pas, etiquette butchering, yeah, he’d totally missed me.

The giant blond muscle mountain made his way over to look down at me. Yeah, down. I didn’t step back. “Harry Redbane,” he said with a grin. “Thought you’d be taller.”

“I thought you’d have more hammer,” I said, as the family resemblance finally clicked.

“Ah, she’d come if called. But this is a day for words and not war.” The norse god of thunder tilted his head, and thwacked me on the shoulder. “Unless you care to try your arm later?” It sounded like a friendly invitation. He must have a strange idea of fun.

“Nah, I’ve not seen Rome yet. I want pizza. And ice cream.”

“Wise,” he grinned, “don’t forget the wine!” Thor went for a pat on the shoulder this time, and it rattled the bones of me. “Let’s get started then! I’d not keep a Knight from his merriment!”

On his way back to the doors Thor landed another comradely slap on Marcone’s back, nearly pitching him forward onto the floor before he caught himself. I snickered, and Maeve pinched me.

On the ass.

I just about caught myself before giving her a retaliatory elbow in the ribs, and offered my arm instead. “My lady.”

“My Knight.”

We strode through the doorway, calm, regal, Winter. And definitely not trying to shove one another into the door frame on the way through.

 

All told, there were nine beings present at the meeting, including me and Maeve. I was introduced to the five I hadn’t met yet, pulling out my best company manners, partly to keep Maeve on side, and partly to thumb my nose at Marcone; he probably expected politicking to bring me out in hives.

I kind of forgot about politicking when it came to choosing a seat at the oval boardroom table-- it looked a little out of place in this marble mausoleum-- dropping into the empty seat on Maeve’s right seemed the logical thing to do, but I didn’t expect Marcone to move directly to the chair on _my_ right. He practically hip checked Slow Moving Tentacle Creature (Name Unspoken By Mortal Tongue) in the process.

This wasn’t the smartest seating arrangement in the world. Not if I was sticking with Plan A: Gold Star for Good Behaviour. Because, yeah, me and Marcone had managed to share a city for the best part of my adult life, but we hadn’t exactly done it quietly. Or politely. Or courteously. Or many other -ly words that were synonymous with me being appropriately Knightly through the course of this meeting. But there wasn’t much I could do about it without looking like some kind of bad mannered yob.

I turned to Maeve, contemplating raising the Emergency Eyebrow Flag, but got distracted by the gesture she made in the space between us. Maeve drew a swan’s feather quill and what I thought was vellum out of the air, and then slid the administrative props in front of me.

That was... kind of cool. The quill even had all the feathery bits still fluffing out from the shaft, all Hollywood anachronism. She’d forgotten something though. “Ink pot?” I grinned.

“No need,” Maeve said, waving at the quill. Hmm. I set nib to paper, and then with an unnecessarily showy spiral, swept dark ink across the page. Cool. Never ending ink, very Harry Potter. I sent my will questing out into the feather, looking for the root of the spell until Maeve kicked me under the table. “I’ll show you later,” she murmured. “Now _concentrate_.”

She was suddenly all business, and it surprised me a little bit. Maybe I wasn’t the only one on his best behaviour, being tested on a milk run. It’s not like _Maeve_ had a stellar track record at handling Winter’s Knights, and Mab _had_ kept her daughter back in the throne room...

Huh. I added that one to the ‘things to ask my godmother’ list.

As far as I could tell, there was no advantage to me in letting Mab think her daughter couldn’t control me. Not right now. So I resolved to do a good job, and started scribbling away as soon as the Winter Lady addressed the room at large.

It was pretty easy. Attention to detail and a steady attention span were something that years of professional wizardry had drummed into me; I could probably take minutes in my sleep.

...Except, if I were sleeping, I wouldn’t have Baron Fucking Marcone sneaking oh so subtle glances over my shoulder as my hand scrabbled across the page.

In my defence, it was really distracting.

He probably knew that. He was probably _trying_ to wind me up.

So my response was proportionate, and totally, not in any way, childish.

_Ventoro of the Tiber states that the discussed amendment has a disproportionate affect on those who make no claim to mortal strongholds, and that John Marcone is a nosy jackass who really needs to mind his own business._

It took Marcone a couple of seconds to notice, and I wouldn’t have caught his reaction if we _hadn’t_ shared a city for most of my adult life, and I wasn’t watching out of the corner of my eye.

Marcone straightened, just slightly, and for a moment trailed to a halt in the middle of his own sentence. I smiled at the vellum, waited for a moment, and let Marcone contemplate the idea that I might just sit here and pepper this official record of the meeting with juvenile comments about him.

And then I scribbled it out.

The quill snapped, and I splattered ink all across the table.

...crap.

I pondered the fractured feather in my hands, and then chanced a glance at Maeve. She managed to convey a sigh with her eyes, accompanied by a flick of her fingers. The quill knitted itself back together. Magic. But maybe scribbling was a bad idea.

I left off subtly insulting Marcone, and he quit sneaking glances over my shoulder. Compromise; Just like old times. Mostly.

But laying off the scribbling didn’t help so much with my attempt at neat notetaking. I was looping around the curve of a ‘c’ when my hand spasmed and pushed the quill sharply against the vellum until it snapped.

My stomach lurched. Maybe it wasn’t just my magic that had to settle; I’d been dead for six months, on _genus loci_ life support, which is the kind of thing that would usually land you months of physiotherapy, not a few weeks marauding around Arctis Tor accidentally putting the fear of Dresden into the local fae with some unintentional shows of power.

Maybe I wasn’t ok.

I looked up, but not at Maeve. I looked at Marcone, the only other human in the room, the only other person subject to the limitations of a mortal body. Even if mine came with a few bonus features. He frowned a question at me, just slightly, and I felt the quill knit together in my hands again.

Fine. Ok. I could sit here fracturing feathers all day, and Maeve could fix them right back up again, and it didn’t matter that my body was being kind of insubordinate.

I’d get better.

I took a slow breath, and loosened my grip on the shaft of the quill. If this needed a delicate touch then fine, I could do that. I’d etched enough teeny tiny runes into various artifacts in my career.

I just had to relax, and not-- _fuck_.

The nib scratched off the end of the vellum, ground across the table, and promptly split, leaking ink everywhere. “ _Arctis_ ,” I hissed, before it could ruin my notes, and then I sat and glared at the mess, feeling hard done by.

A ballpoint pen rolled across my page. I looked at Marcone, and got blank expression #12, which meant I had no idea if he was secretly laughing at me or not.

“No gifts, Baron.” Maeve said. “Not here. It must be paid for.”

Gifts. A goddamn pen, and I never figured Marcone for the ballpoint type, I thought he’d be all Montblanc underwater anti-gravity pens with Kevlar plating, not a slim tube of plastic that looked a bit gnawed on. But I wanted it. It was stupid and cheap and human but I looked at it and I knew it would work for me, that I didn’t need to be dicking around with bits of bird like a medieval clerk.

Surely I could trade for a ballpoint. I checked my pockets, and came up empty. I could give him the cuff links, maybe, but I was pretty sure they’d be viewed as a Winter token. Too much.

The creatures around the table began to shift, apparently disturbed by this interruption to their fascinating discussion. He-Man got bored faster than the others.

“Hurry up wizard,” Thor said. “Even a kiss would do.”

I blinked at Thor, who was very... big, and macho, and Viking, and apparently suggesting that when in Rome... they did do that in Europe, right? All the cheek kissing, just like shaking hands.

I turned to look at Marcone, and his face was even blanker. I didn’t think that was humanly possible, so maybe he’d been practicing since I died.

I leaned forward, pecked John Marcone on the cheek, and sat back, the proud owner of one second hand ballpoint pen. I wondered what the going rate would have been if he _had_ handed me one of those anti-tank missile Montblanc things.

I turned to ask, grinning, and then faltered. Marcone’s expression didn’t count as ‘blank’ any more, he’d gone straight through blank and into something else; I looked into his eyes, and he wasn’t even there.

“Shall we continue?” he asked blandly.

Feeling strangely unnerved, I turned back to my notes. “How do you spell disenfranchisement?”

The ballpoint made things easier, but it took _four hours_ for the council to fully air their views, by which point my hand was cramping, I had a callous on my middle finger, and I was starting to have rather desperate thoughts about dinner.

I could’ve kissed Maeve when she started to wrap things up. “Then, having heard from all quarters, I declare this consultation closed. Go about your business, my lords, and Winter will speak with you anon.”

_Finally_. There was a general scraping of furniture and a clatter of creatures making their way out of the chamber. But John Marcone seemed to be taking rather a long time to gather his notes together. He always looked pretty neat, well put together, but I was willing to bet he didn’t usually agonise over straightening up the pages of his notepad before leaving a meeting.

I wasn’t the only one to notice.

“You have safe passage Baron, there’s no call to linger.” Maeve leaned around me to take a closer look at Marcone, dropping an unnecessary hand on my shoulder and hitting him with the full come-hither whammy. “Unless you seek a further exchange of favor with Winter?”

Marcone wasn’t stupid; he stood. “Lady. I seek nothing from you at this time, but my thanks for asking. I’ll see myself out.” With one last blank glance at me, he was gone.

Right. There was something going on there. I needed another list. ‘Things to harass the scumbag over’, maybe. But right then I had more pressing concerns, and I addressed them by pushing the vellum over to Maeve. She looked at it, mouth pouting into a little moue of consideration. “Come on, my lady. Best handwriting and everything.”

Maeve tilted the page sideways. “It looks rather like a spider bathed in an ink pot and then went waltzing across the page.”

“If you want a _calligrapher_ , you don’t hire a wizard; we’re worse than doctors. Professionally obliged to be strange and incomprehensible.”

I’d amused Maeve, I could tell by the look in her eyes, but she still wanted to draw it out. “You were insolent before the thunderer.”

“Oh, come on! Vadderung’s kid wouldn’t know courtly manners if he smashed them with a hammer!” Which was a bit unfair, really. I’m sure Thor could pomp and circumstance with the best of them if he wanted. He just didn’t.

“You antagonised the Baron.”

I frowned, scrambling for a defense. “Setting him at his ease. To... facilitate? ...a clear and comprehensive exchange of ideas. If I _hadn’t_ antagonised him, he’d have spent the whole meeting trying to work out if I was an impostor.”

Maeve looked me over, and then nodded. “Fair answers. Nothing is frozen, or on fire. Those that matter marked you as a knight and not a clerk. The Queen will be satisfied.”

Or in other words: congratulations, you earned yourself a hall pass. I grinned, pushing my chair back and ready to make a break for it, but Maeve caught me by the wrist.

“Ah! Patience, Harry. A moment.” With her free hand, she fished a little pouch out of her cleavage and tossed it to me. I peered inside.

Euros. Huh. Pocket money.

“Go, enjoy the night. I’ll be drinking in Pigneto. If you run into trouble, call me.” She didn’t mean on her phone. Exactly what trouble Maeve thought I could get into in one night in Rome was unspecified, but maybe we were still reading from Mab’s _Care and Handling of Harry Dresden_ manual.

As soon as Maeve freed my wrist I was gone, faster than Mister hunting kibble. Out through the double doors and down the tunnel, plotting. I could... what, phone someone? Say hi, I’m not dead? The temptation to jump in a Way and hotfoot it back to Chicago was high, but I’d been given _this_ city for the night, not my own, and Mab might skin me and--

And John Marcone had stopped to shuffle his paperwork again. Slap bang in the middle of the exit tunnel. He couldn’t be more obvious about waiting for me short of holding a sign saying ‘Sir Wizard Harry Blackstone Copperfield Dresden’.

Marcone still had the cheek to raise his eyebrows at me, as if in polite surprise.

“What the hell are you playing at?” I asked him shortly. Marcone was standing between me and freedom.

“It’s best to review these things promptly. I’ve spotted an error in my notes.”

“Marcone. It’s like... 10 o’clock on what’s probably a Friday night, I’m pretty sure you have better things to do.”

“Saturday,” he frowned. “You’ve lost time.”

“No, I’ve been dead. Makes calendars a bit surprising.”

“Death seems to be treating you well,” he said, looking me up and down. “As does Winter. You have leverage?”

“I have enough sense not to discuss that with you,” I said. “Now get out of my way.”

Marcone had safe passage; I wasn’t going to lay a hand or a spell on him, but he stepped aside anyway. Marcone waited until I’d moved past him to say, “Karrin Murphy executed a Black Court vampire in Lincoln Park today. It was skillfully done.”

“Mur.. ” I trailed to a halt. “Murphy. Oh I bet she did, she _put on the boots_ , Marcone.” I was grinning at him, which was annoying, but I really couldn’t help myself. “They keep you updated, don’t they?”

“Reports every hour on the hour. There will be several awaiting me when I exit into the Trevi fountain.”

Reports. About Chicago.

I dithered.

“What’s your price, Baron?” I asked grudgingly. I wanted to read them. I _really_ wanted to read them.

“The pleasure of your company for the evening.”

Right. I started examining the dental work of the gift horse. “My _company_? Platonic company? Because I’m not inclined to pimp myself out for intelligence reports. Not to you.”

Marcone looked like I’d slapped him. Except, you know. Less quick and knifey than I thought he might be if I slapped him. “You kissed me earlier, Mr Dresden. I didn’t ask or expect you to, I _presumed_ you were trying to pull my pigtails--” I snickered at the image, “ --not that this was a standard bargaining tactic for you.”

“Well, it’s not,” I said, crossing my arms, and then remembering some of my Winter Knight Hall of Fame lessons with Lea felt compelled to add, “yet.”

We were glaring at one another. I wasn’t entirely sure why. Marcone pinched the bridge of his nose. “Harry. Will you come and eat pizza and pasta and drink beer with me and talk about the city? Yes or no?”

_The_ city. Our city, Chicago. So near and so far, and here Marcone was, out of place in this marble mausoleum in the same way the Sears Tower would be if someone popped it in the middle of the Coliseum.

Pizza. Pizza and _beer_ , and I had the money to pay my own way; I wouldn’t be indebting myself or Winter. I wanted it, the same way I’d wanted the pen. Familiar mortal company, a guy that at least understood my wisecracks even if he didn’t appreciate them.

“Yes. Yeah. Come on Marcone, we’ve got til the sun rises.”

I walked towards the Way out, listening to Marcone’s footsteps behind me.


End file.
